HAN Hyo-joo is an actress better known for her roles in TV dramas than in films. She made her debut in a sitcom <Nonstop 5> (2004) and moved on to displaying her graceful and innocent image in TV dramas like <Spring Waltz> (2006) and <Iljimae> (2008). But it was in <Brilliant Legacy> (2009) that placed HAN over other top actresses. She played the cute female lead who falls in love with the son of a wealthy conglomerate family. The TV drama broke the wa... expand

HAN Hyo-joo is an actress better known for her roles in TV dramas than in films. She made her debut in a sitcom <Nonstop 5> (2004) and moved on to displaying her graceful and innocent image in TV dramas like <Spring Waltz> (2006) and <Iljimae> (2008). But it was in <Brilliant Legacy> (2009) that placed HAN over other top actresses. She played the cute female lead who falls in love with the son of a wealthy conglomerate family. The TV drama broke the watershed viewer rating of 40% and left its mark as the most popular TV drama of 2009. HAN is best known for her innocent appearance and adorable smile with which she has paved her way into the melodrama genre. In her first feature film <Always> (2011), she kept loyal to her original image when playing a blind woman, Jung-hwa, who goes through a painful love story. It looks like HAN will continue to carry the nickname of the ‘innocent actress’ for a while. She is to appear in a historical film <Masquerade> (2012) as the Queen, another opportunity for her to showcase her elegance. Following another romantic turn alongside KO Soo in <Love 911>, HAN changed her image to play the sharp rookie in the hit surveillance thriller <Cold Eyes>, a popular draw in the summer of 2013. She next played the muse who inspires a trio of musicians in the 1960s, in the music biopic <C’est si bon> in 2015, the same year she appeared as one of the leads in <The Beauty Inside>, a romcom featuring a man who wakes up as a different person every day yet still tries to woo the girl of his dreams. She was next cast as a giseang in PARK Heung-sik’s <Hae-uh-hwa>.

LEE Jun-ho, a member of the popular K-pop boyband 2PM, has selected his next film project which will be the period comedy Gibang Bachelor (working title). The project will be helmed by NAM Dae-joong, the director who debuted with the youth comedy The Last Ride in 2016. The young singer began his career in 2006, when he won the Superstar Survival competition show and signed with JYP Entertainment. ...

KIM Jee-woon’s latest film, the big-budget sci-fi action noir ILLANG : THE WOLF BRIGADE, is set to have its international premiere in competition at the upcoming 66th San Sebastián International Film Festival. A remake of the 2000 anime classic Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, KIM’s ILLANG : THE WOLF BRIGADE takes place in 2029 after the two Koreas have engaged in five years of preparations ahead of reu...

Plans to Enter Global Content Market by Securing Korean Wave Stars A subsidiary of KakaoTalk (www.kakaocorp.com), company that evolved from being an instant messenger application to a complete IT firm, Kakao M (www.kakao-m.com) has seen its influence grow by creating partnerships with major management agencies in Korea. “In order to enter the K Content Global Market, we signed contracts with three...

Korean Films Lord Over Marketplace During the last weekend of the summer holiday period in Korea, local films retained the advantage with a commanding 81% of the marketplace, as the top three entries were homebred, while overall admissions stood at 3.14 million. Performing a third victory lap atop the charts after a 40% post-holiday weekend dip was RYOO Seung-wan’s action-comedy Veteran, which add...

Things keep looking up for the local industry as admissions over the weekend reached 4.82 million, setting a new benchmark for the year. Coming up tops again following an 18% increase, Veteran added 2.25 million viewers (USD 15.33 million) to a powerful 12-day haul of 6.64 million spectators (USD 44.16 million). With strong word of mouth and the help of Liberation Day falling on Saturday, RYOO Seu...

Following a stellar 2012, the Korean film industry closed out another record year on New Year’s Eve in 2013 as admissions soared over 200 million viewers for the first time. The final total came in at 213.31 million spectators, a 9.45% increase over the previous year, but it wasn’t the only record set over the 12 month stretch. With 127.27 million admissions, local releases also eclipsed 2012’s pr...